The headline in Sunday's Manteca Bulletin reaffirmed the construction of a new BPS and other facilities at the corner of Union Rd and Atherton Rd.
In addition to the BPS, there will be two hotels. One of them is 10 stories...the other 5 stories. A 3,000 seat theater, several restaurants and a 100,000 sq ft "anchor store" in addition to BPS.
There is also the probability of the construction of a 5 acre lake within the confines of the property.
Numerous other retail outlets are also planned.
Since this location is so close to my home, I drove by yesterday to see if construction had begun. Other than a few trees being removed, nothing has been done. Next Fall is supposed to be the opening date.
Larry Douglas
Update on BPS in Manteca
-
Larry Douglas
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 4:43 am
- Location: Manteca CA
Re: Update on BPS in Manteca
sunday's sac bee had a huge article on bps in sac and it aint lookin good...
Re: Update on BPS in Manteca
dont give up yet bahlzar....I was "browsing" Bass Pro's website yesterday and they have Sacramento listed as a future store AGAIN....about 2 weeks ago I went on there and they had removed Sacramento....maybe there is still hope for ya? Manteca isnt really close for me but hey I can drive 1-1 1/2 hours for them!
I didn't get that impression from the article
I didn't get that impression at all from the article.
Here is the link:
PS. You have to create an account to view, it is free and they don't sell your info for spam. I subscribe to a email from Sacbee everyday. Worth it!
http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/71351.html
Reeling in shoppers
A Bass Pro store could shake local outdoor retailers
By Jon Ortiz - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 5, 2006
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D1
Print | E-Mail | Comments (3)
The Bass Pro megastore in Las Vegas is the size of four football fields and filled with a vast variety of fishing, hunting, and boating equipment. The outlet has more than 200 employees. The company has plans to open a similar megastore at Sacramento's downtown railyard site, although overall development plans there remain in flux.
Bass Pro Shops
See additional images
With a thousand fishing rods angling toward a blue ceiling punctuated by boat bottoms and propellers, customers looking up as they cruise the huge Bass Pro Outdoor World here have the odd sensation that they are standing under water.
That's the same feeling Sacramento retailers fear is ahead for them should Bass Pro Shops Inc., one of the country's biggest outdoor equipment sellers, follow through on a plan to open a mammoth store in the city's downtown railyard development. Such a move would likely sink some of the region's locally owned fishing, camping and hunting shops.
Although fewer Americans are outdoor enthusiasts these days, Bass Pro, based in Springfield, Mo., is on an expansion binge with a mix of scale, showmanship and unrivaled stock that shoppers drive hundreds of miles to buy.
The company's 36 gigantic stores in the United States and Canada are all infused with a local flavor, designed to entertain visitors and loaded with every outdoor recreation item imaginable.
The 165,000-square-foot Las Vegas store sells $400 kayaks and $100,000 houseboats, trout flies for $2.99 per two-pack and $250 high-tech deep-sea lures. Looking for a good place to fish? There are more than 600 fish finders and Global Positioning System devices. And that's just in the marine section.
Smaller operators can't compete with that kind of selection and volume pricing, said Sep Hendrickson, a Vacaville tackle maker who sells his wares to many mom-and-pop shops in Northern California.
"In the Sacramento area, we have a lot of great locally owned shops because of where we live," said Hendrickson, who also hosts the "California Sportsmen" radio talk show on KHTK (1140 AM). "But if Bass Pro comes to town, it'll put a real hurt on a lot of the small shops. It's the old Wal-Mart story all over again."
Indeed, Bass Pro's megastore model is the next step in the big box trend that has washed over neighborhood-based specialty stores that used to sell things like electronics, hardware or clothing. Like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy, Bass Pro exploits consumers' preference for one-stop shopping and lower prices, but its careful attention to architecture, design and atmosphere can make buying a flashlight an experience akin to visiting Disneyland.
"It's the Starbucking of outdoor recreation retailing," said City University of New York marketing professor Robb Hecht.
It has never been easy for independent shops. Weather, poor fish runs and drought can affect sales. And outdoor recreation gear retailers have been struggling with stagnant sales for years. Even enthusiasts admit that children who once camped, fished and hunted have forsaken the great outdoors for video games, the Internet and personal electronics -- and shifted the industry's prime customers from adolescents to adults.
That makes growing the business tough. Last year, wholesalers shipped retail stores about $1.64 billion of camping gear -- tents, coolers, sleeping bags, etc. -- down from $1.74 billion in 2004, according to industry trade association SMGA International.
Chains like Bass Pro and competitors such as Cabela's Inc., based in Sidney, Neb., are responding with the sprawling megastore approach because the stores' sheer spectacle can create new enthusiasts and steal customers from other retailers, Hecht said.
"The local stores lose," he said, "and the megastores win."
Bass Pro opened its first store in Springfield in 1972 and published its first mail order catalog two years later.
In 1984, the company broke ground on its 300,000-square-foot Outdoor World showroom in Springfield. The store became such an attraction that Missouri officials opened a wildlife museum next door. Outdoor enthusiasts from around the world flocked to the one-of-a-kind store that became the inspiration for Bass Pro shops that followed.
In May, the company announced it would come to Sacramento after founder John L. Morris visited the city and "fell in love" with the railyard because of its historic buildings, said Thomas Enterprises spokeswoman Deborah Pacyna.
Of course, it helps that California boat owners registered 895,000 boats in 2004, trailing only Florida and Michigan, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
And it doesn't hurt that Sacramento each year is among the top three counties statewide for issuing fishing licenses and is a gateway to world-class fishing, camping and boating resources from San Francisco Bay to Lake Tahoe, the Oregon border to Yosemite.
"If we can sell boats in the middle of the desert, I think we'll do just fine in Sacramento," said Las Vegas store manager Ron Rupert.
Although a massive outdoor sporting goods store downtown might seem like a misfit to some, Bass Pro has plenty of experience with adapting its operations to urban settings, said company spokesman Larry Whiteley.
"We've built stores in cities like Cincinnati, and we're looking at going into the Pyramid (the former home-court arena of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies)," Whiteley said. "When we talked about the downtown site in Orlando, I thought, 'We're going to open there?' But it worked out fine."
A Sacramento store would probably feature underground parking, and the showroom could rise two stories or more. "We can go up if we need to," Whiteley said.
The 165,000-square-foot Bass Pro on the southern outskirts of Las Vegas is the size of four football fields and has more than 200 employees. It opened two years ago this month and is the chain's Western outpost. The company plans to open in about 28 cities in the next few years, including Manteca, Reno and Rancho Cucamonga.
Rupert said shoppers spend an average of three hours in the store, which draws visitors from San Diego to Phoenix and Salt Lake City. He and other company executives declined to disclose sales figures for the store or the chain.
Visitors to the store on Dean Martin Drive enter through Bass Pro's massive rock and log-frame storefront or, alternately, cross a 30-foot wood bridge that spans waterfall-fed indoor ponds separating the store from its decidedly indoor neighbor, Silverton Lodge and Casino.
Inside, imprints of mule deer, bighorn sheep, beaver, and ring-necked pheasant dot the brown concrete floor. A 21-foot-tall stuffed giraffe stands near a 40,000-gallon freshwater aquarium. Ducks float and native trout thrash in a stream that meanders through the store.
Anglers can get fly-tying tips from staff members expert in the art of assembling thread, feathers and hooks into simulated insects or baitfish. Hunters can pick from subzero parkas or his-and-hers high-desert camouflage in the clothing section.
The marine section sells a fleet of boats that includes the houseboat that Silverton casino officials bought last year -- prices start at around $100,000 -- to put on nearby Lake Mead for high-roller entertainment.
On the second floor, the Fine Gun Room displays a $250,000 rifle for sale. A gunsmith works on cleaning and repairing firearms, not far from the indoor gun and archery ranges.
Nearby, a deer sniffs curiously toward a mountain lion crouched behind a bush, one of a half-dozen true-to-nature dioramas in the store.
"It's an amazing place," said Steve Manley, who drove two hours from his Fort Mohave, Ariz., home to swing golf clubs in the pro shop's computer-simulated driving range. "The first time I came here, I spent five hours just eyeballing everything. They have stuff that I didn't even know existed."
About 3 million visitors flocked to the Las Vegas store in its first year -- four times the number of fans who went through Arco Arena turnstiles for the Kings' 41 sold-out regular season home games last season.
Bass Pro hasn't yet announced when it will open in Sacramento, because railyard developer Thomas Enterprises has yet to close a deal with Union Pacific Railroad to purchase the 240-acre property.
Still, Suheil Totah, vice president of development for Thomas Enterprises, has called Bass Pro's eventual arrival "the biggest thing to hit downtown in years."
It would also be the worst thing for many local bait, boat and gun shops, said Sacramento Pro Tackle owner Dennis Pfanner.
"If they come to town, it's going to kill a lot of the small guys around here," Pfanner said at the 1,800-square-foot Northgate Boulevard store he has operated for nearly 30 years. "Everybody will be affected. Some shops will just go belly-up."
In Las Vegas, Mike Roser has been talking about the ones that got away since Bass Pro came to town.
"Right away, special orders dried up. It hurt a lot of rod and reel sales," said Roser, who used to own and operate Bass Anglers Supply Shop, a bait and tackle store 12 miles from Bass Pro.
Roser eventually shut his 6-year-old store, moved his inventory to his home and started selling online. "I think I'm going to get back into making baits," he said.
At Elkhorn Bait and Tackle in Rio Linda, store manager Barry Butler sat on boxes filled with fishing reels as he contemplated his store's future with Bass Pro in Sacramento.
He figures the store is going to take some hits, especially the first year because "like anything new, people will want to see what the store has." But the newness will wear off, and his customers are loyal, he said.
"Besides, we have Uncle Larry," Butler said, pointing to one of his employees. "Extremely knowledgeable. He can show people tricks to put fish in their boats. And I've had 33 years in this business. I doubt that Bass Pro will be selling that kind of experience."
About the writer:
The Bee's Jon Ortiz can be reached at (916) 321-1043 or jortiz@sacbee.com.
Bass Pro Shops Inc., one of the nation's biggest sellers of outdoor equipment, has 36 gigantic stores in the United States and Canada.
Bass Pro Shops
Bass Pro Shops Bass Pro megastores provide outdoor enthusiasts with one-stop shopping and prices generally lower than smaller competitors because of volume buying. Unlike most big-box chains, Bass Pro Shops Inc. pays careful attention to architecture, design and atmosphere.
Bass Pro Shops
Unique content, exceptional value. SUBSCRIBE NOW!
Here is the link:
PS. You have to create an account to view, it is free and they don't sell your info for spam. I subscribe to a email from Sacbee everyday. Worth it!
http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/71351.html
Reeling in shoppers
A Bass Pro store could shake local outdoor retailers
By Jon Ortiz - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 5, 2006
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D1
Print | E-Mail | Comments (3)
The Bass Pro megastore in Las Vegas is the size of four football fields and filled with a vast variety of fishing, hunting, and boating equipment. The outlet has more than 200 employees. The company has plans to open a similar megastore at Sacramento's downtown railyard site, although overall development plans there remain in flux.
Bass Pro Shops
See additional images
With a thousand fishing rods angling toward a blue ceiling punctuated by boat bottoms and propellers, customers looking up as they cruise the huge Bass Pro Outdoor World here have the odd sensation that they are standing under water.
That's the same feeling Sacramento retailers fear is ahead for them should Bass Pro Shops Inc., one of the country's biggest outdoor equipment sellers, follow through on a plan to open a mammoth store in the city's downtown railyard development. Such a move would likely sink some of the region's locally owned fishing, camping and hunting shops.
Although fewer Americans are outdoor enthusiasts these days, Bass Pro, based in Springfield, Mo., is on an expansion binge with a mix of scale, showmanship and unrivaled stock that shoppers drive hundreds of miles to buy.
The company's 36 gigantic stores in the United States and Canada are all infused with a local flavor, designed to entertain visitors and loaded with every outdoor recreation item imaginable.
The 165,000-square-foot Las Vegas store sells $400 kayaks and $100,000 houseboats, trout flies for $2.99 per two-pack and $250 high-tech deep-sea lures. Looking for a good place to fish? There are more than 600 fish finders and Global Positioning System devices. And that's just in the marine section.
Smaller operators can't compete with that kind of selection and volume pricing, said Sep Hendrickson, a Vacaville tackle maker who sells his wares to many mom-and-pop shops in Northern California.
"In the Sacramento area, we have a lot of great locally owned shops because of where we live," said Hendrickson, who also hosts the "California Sportsmen" radio talk show on KHTK (1140 AM). "But if Bass Pro comes to town, it'll put a real hurt on a lot of the small shops. It's the old Wal-Mart story all over again."
Indeed, Bass Pro's megastore model is the next step in the big box trend that has washed over neighborhood-based specialty stores that used to sell things like electronics, hardware or clothing. Like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy, Bass Pro exploits consumers' preference for one-stop shopping and lower prices, but its careful attention to architecture, design and atmosphere can make buying a flashlight an experience akin to visiting Disneyland.
"It's the Starbucking of outdoor recreation retailing," said City University of New York marketing professor Robb Hecht.
It has never been easy for independent shops. Weather, poor fish runs and drought can affect sales. And outdoor recreation gear retailers have been struggling with stagnant sales for years. Even enthusiasts admit that children who once camped, fished and hunted have forsaken the great outdoors for video games, the Internet and personal electronics -- and shifted the industry's prime customers from adolescents to adults.
That makes growing the business tough. Last year, wholesalers shipped retail stores about $1.64 billion of camping gear -- tents, coolers, sleeping bags, etc. -- down from $1.74 billion in 2004, according to industry trade association SMGA International.
Chains like Bass Pro and competitors such as Cabela's Inc., based in Sidney, Neb., are responding with the sprawling megastore approach because the stores' sheer spectacle can create new enthusiasts and steal customers from other retailers, Hecht said.
"The local stores lose," he said, "and the megastores win."
Bass Pro opened its first store in Springfield in 1972 and published its first mail order catalog two years later.
In 1984, the company broke ground on its 300,000-square-foot Outdoor World showroom in Springfield. The store became such an attraction that Missouri officials opened a wildlife museum next door. Outdoor enthusiasts from around the world flocked to the one-of-a-kind store that became the inspiration for Bass Pro shops that followed.
In May, the company announced it would come to Sacramento after founder John L. Morris visited the city and "fell in love" with the railyard because of its historic buildings, said Thomas Enterprises spokeswoman Deborah Pacyna.
Of course, it helps that California boat owners registered 895,000 boats in 2004, trailing only Florida and Michigan, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
And it doesn't hurt that Sacramento each year is among the top three counties statewide for issuing fishing licenses and is a gateway to world-class fishing, camping and boating resources from San Francisco Bay to Lake Tahoe, the Oregon border to Yosemite.
"If we can sell boats in the middle of the desert, I think we'll do just fine in Sacramento," said Las Vegas store manager Ron Rupert.
Although a massive outdoor sporting goods store downtown might seem like a misfit to some, Bass Pro has plenty of experience with adapting its operations to urban settings, said company spokesman Larry Whiteley.
"We've built stores in cities like Cincinnati, and we're looking at going into the Pyramid (the former home-court arena of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies)," Whiteley said. "When we talked about the downtown site in Orlando, I thought, 'We're going to open there?' But it worked out fine."
A Sacramento store would probably feature underground parking, and the showroom could rise two stories or more. "We can go up if we need to," Whiteley said.
The 165,000-square-foot Bass Pro on the southern outskirts of Las Vegas is the size of four football fields and has more than 200 employees. It opened two years ago this month and is the chain's Western outpost. The company plans to open in about 28 cities in the next few years, including Manteca, Reno and Rancho Cucamonga.
Rupert said shoppers spend an average of three hours in the store, which draws visitors from San Diego to Phoenix and Salt Lake City. He and other company executives declined to disclose sales figures for the store or the chain.
Visitors to the store on Dean Martin Drive enter through Bass Pro's massive rock and log-frame storefront or, alternately, cross a 30-foot wood bridge that spans waterfall-fed indoor ponds separating the store from its decidedly indoor neighbor, Silverton Lodge and Casino.
Inside, imprints of mule deer, bighorn sheep, beaver, and ring-necked pheasant dot the brown concrete floor. A 21-foot-tall stuffed giraffe stands near a 40,000-gallon freshwater aquarium. Ducks float and native trout thrash in a stream that meanders through the store.
Anglers can get fly-tying tips from staff members expert in the art of assembling thread, feathers and hooks into simulated insects or baitfish. Hunters can pick from subzero parkas or his-and-hers high-desert camouflage in the clothing section.
The marine section sells a fleet of boats that includes the houseboat that Silverton casino officials bought last year -- prices start at around $100,000 -- to put on nearby Lake Mead for high-roller entertainment.
On the second floor, the Fine Gun Room displays a $250,000 rifle for sale. A gunsmith works on cleaning and repairing firearms, not far from the indoor gun and archery ranges.
Nearby, a deer sniffs curiously toward a mountain lion crouched behind a bush, one of a half-dozen true-to-nature dioramas in the store.
"It's an amazing place," said Steve Manley, who drove two hours from his Fort Mohave, Ariz., home to swing golf clubs in the pro shop's computer-simulated driving range. "The first time I came here, I spent five hours just eyeballing everything. They have stuff that I didn't even know existed."
About 3 million visitors flocked to the Las Vegas store in its first year -- four times the number of fans who went through Arco Arena turnstiles for the Kings' 41 sold-out regular season home games last season.
Bass Pro hasn't yet announced when it will open in Sacramento, because railyard developer Thomas Enterprises has yet to close a deal with Union Pacific Railroad to purchase the 240-acre property.
Still, Suheil Totah, vice president of development for Thomas Enterprises, has called Bass Pro's eventual arrival "the biggest thing to hit downtown in years."
It would also be the worst thing for many local bait, boat and gun shops, said Sacramento Pro Tackle owner Dennis Pfanner.
"If they come to town, it's going to kill a lot of the small guys around here," Pfanner said at the 1,800-square-foot Northgate Boulevard store he has operated for nearly 30 years. "Everybody will be affected. Some shops will just go belly-up."
In Las Vegas, Mike Roser has been talking about the ones that got away since Bass Pro came to town.
"Right away, special orders dried up. It hurt a lot of rod and reel sales," said Roser, who used to own and operate Bass Anglers Supply Shop, a bait and tackle store 12 miles from Bass Pro.
Roser eventually shut his 6-year-old store, moved his inventory to his home and started selling online. "I think I'm going to get back into making baits," he said.
At Elkhorn Bait and Tackle in Rio Linda, store manager Barry Butler sat on boxes filled with fishing reels as he contemplated his store's future with Bass Pro in Sacramento.
He figures the store is going to take some hits, especially the first year because "like anything new, people will want to see what the store has." But the newness will wear off, and his customers are loyal, he said.
"Besides, we have Uncle Larry," Butler said, pointing to one of his employees. "Extremely knowledgeable. He can show people tricks to put fish in their boats. And I've had 33 years in this business. I doubt that Bass Pro will be selling that kind of experience."
About the writer:
The Bee's Jon Ortiz can be reached at (916) 321-1043 or jortiz@sacbee.com.
Bass Pro Shops Inc., one of the nation's biggest sellers of outdoor equipment, has 36 gigantic stores in the United States and Canada.
Bass Pro Shops
Bass Pro Shops Bass Pro megastores provide outdoor enthusiasts with one-stop shopping and prices generally lower than smaller competitors because of volume buying. Unlike most big-box chains, Bass Pro Shops Inc. pays careful attention to architecture, design and atmosphere.
Bass Pro Shops
Unique content, exceptional value. SUBSCRIBE NOW!
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